Hate Can Only Go So Far
by butterfly04
Summary: Lily Evans has always hated that arrogant James Potter. But in 7th year, her feelings are changing drastically ... Short&Sweet, sorry, bad summary!
1. Thought You'd Never Ask

Lily cast her eye around the crowd. She thought she'd heard someone call her, but couldn't see whoever it was. She turned around and, with a noise of frustration, dropped her book bag with a crash.  
  
Lily was in her seventh year at Hogwarts, and was carrying around a number of awkward and heavy books with her. She hadn't quite got the hang of it yet, and today, she thought with annoyance, she had dropped her book bag a total of four times, earning herself a lot of stares from the people around her.  
  
Sighing, Lily began to pick up her books, when a hand reached down, scooped them up, and placed them in her bag for her. She looked up in surprise.  
  
"James!"  
  
James Potter stood over her, smiling.  
  
"Hello, Lily," he said pleasantly.  
  
Lily looked quickly at her feet. Her shoelaces had never been this interesting before ...  
  
"Er, thanks, James ..." she mumbled awkwardly.  
  
She was feeling very strange. Lately, every time she saw James Potter, her heart fluttered and her cheeks went pink ... a feeling she had never experienced with the arrogant Potter ... or was he so arrogant any more?  
  
"No problem," said James, bringing Lily out of her thoughts. "I called out to you ..."  
  
Lily smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I didn't see you. What did you want? Do you need to borrow a book or something?"  
  
James looked rather embarrassed, an emotion Lily had hardly ever seen him express.  
  
"Er, no ... I've just been meaning to ask you something ..." he began.  
  
He, of course, had fancied Lily ever since third year, when he'd just started really noticing girls. Lily was very pretty, of course, that was James' first observation, but she was also smart, confident and kind. However, she'd always turned James down when he'd asked her out; perhaps it was the manner in which he'd asked her ... but here, now, he was more serious than ever.  
  
"Erm ... would you like to have dinner with me tonight, Lily?"  
  
There. He'd done it (again). He prepared to be rejected, yet again ...  
  
"kind. However, she'd always turned James down when he'd asked her out; perhaps it was the manner in which he'd asked her ... but here, now, he was more serious than ever.  
  
"Erm ... would you like to have dinner with me tonight, Lily?"  
  
There. He'd done it (again). He prepared to be rejected, yet again ...  
  
"Yes!"  
  
The small crowd of people jostling past them, fell silent and stopped to stare at Lily. She flushed a deep red.  
  
"I mean, erm ... of – of course, James," she said in a barely audible voice. She took her books gently from James and set off down the hall at a very fast walk, filled with mixed joy and embarrassment.  
  
After a few seconds, the crowd resumed its noisy way down the hall, but James stood, staring, apparently in shock, after Lily. After a moment, Frank Longbottom came over and asked, "What on earth did you do to make her run away, James?"  
  
James looked bewildered.  
  
"I really don't understand girls." 


	2. Requiring a Date

Disclaimer: OK, I don't own anything in this story except Lily's friends Steph and Elle, and the plot. Lily's friend Alice is Mrs Longbottom, who's J.K.'s.  
  
A/N: I was so excited about posting my first story, I forgot to add a disclaimer and an A/N! So, I just want to say thanks to my great friend Steph – w/o you my story wouldn't be on here! (You might find yourself in here if you look, Steph!) And also thanks to the people who reviewed – you guys rock! I know the rest of this doesn't really follow your advice, but that's because it was all finished already. Thanks anyway! So here it is. Enjoy!  
  
***  
  
"Hey – Padfoot! PADFOOT!"  
  
James weaved through the mass of surging, noisy students who had just come out from Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures. He looked around for Sirius.  
  
"James! Over here!"  
  
James spun round and spotted his best friends Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew standing in a corner of the crowded courtyard. He hurried over, excited but trying not to show it.  
  
"So?" Sirius raised his eyebrows, looking James over questioningly. "What did she say?"  
  
James grinned and nodded his head.  
  
Remus looked up from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Seven and said with a wide smile, "Congrats, James! About time, anyway!"  
  
Peter looked up at his friends, who were all considerably taller than him.  
  
"What? Congratulations for what?" he asked with a confused look upon his round face.  
  
Sirius rolled his eyes.  
  
"Wormtail, do you listen to anything? He asked Lily Evans out! Well, it's about time, mind you, he's been asking her for about five years ... maybe it's because his head's shrunk just a little bit ..."  
  
He tried to grab James' head, but James laughed and ducked out of the way.  
  
Peter looked surprised. "He asked her again? Well, what did she say?"  
  
Sirius was in a state of mild disbelief.  
  
"Wormtail, you are the thickest, most ignorant –"  
  
Remus cut Sirius off. "Where are you going to take her, Prongs? It'll have to be somewhere good ..."  
  
James looked thoughtful. "Yeah, I reckon I know somewhere, but we'll have to check it out first ..."  
  
And he began to explain his plan.  
  
***  
  
"But, Lils ... James Potter's an – an – an arrogant git!"  
  
Lily grinned; she couldn't help it. "I know," she said, beaming around at her friends Steph, Elle and Alice, who were all staring at her as if she was crazy, which, she reminded herself, she probably was. "I mean, he was, but he's changed," she explained. "He's much nicer now, really sweet. We're having dinner tonight."  
  
Elle and Alice were still looking disbelieving, but to Lily's relief, Steph was beginning to grin; in a matter of seconds, she was laughing.  
  
"What's so funny?" asked Lily, as Steph wiped tears of laughter out of her eyes.  
  
"It's just – you and Potter have always hated each other, for as long as anyone can remember," Steph said, having finished laughing. "I mean – it's you and Potter. You're arch-enemies! But now you're acting as though you've fancied him for ages!"  
  
Seeing Lily's face go red, Steph began to smile again. "You have, haven't you?" And she began to laugh again, harder than ever, Elle and Alice joining her this time.  
  
"Oh, shut up, you three," Lily said, rolling her eyes, but she was smiling.  
  
***  
  
At eight o'clock that evening, James was waiting in the Gryffindor common room, where he'd asked Lily to meet him. He was about to check his watch for the hundredth time when, sure enough, she came slowly down the girls' stairs, looking very pretty indeed as her vivid hair brushed her elbows. She looked around for James and as she saw him, her face broke into a shy smile.  
  
"Hi," said James.  
  
"Hey," breathed Lily.  
  
They continued to stare at each other until James tore his gaze from her beautiful, bright green eyes, cleared his throat and said, "We'd better get going ..." Lily nodded somewhat embarrassedly and they set off.  
  
They hurried past the Fat Lady, who awoke from a doze ("Goodnight, dears ..."), and climbed a few staircases until they reached a large, blank stretch of wall.  
  
"James, what ...?" began Lily curiously, but James held up a hand. He looked around, and apparently decided that the coast was clear. Then, he began to do something very odd: James began to pace three times up and down in front of the wall. He was muttering very quietly to himself, words Lily couldn't hear: "Something nice ... first date ... got to be good ..."  
  
Suddenly, a door appeared.  
  
James grinned, opened it, and beckoned to Lily ... and they entered the Room of Requirement.  
  
The Room was dimly lit with white and gold candles, and there were fairy lights twinkling around the walls, looking like miniature galaxies of stars. In the very centre of the room was a table set for two.  
  
"Oh, James ..." breathed Lily, looking around at the beautiful setting.  
  
The Room of Requirement, as usual, was perfect for the occasion.  
  
"Come on," said James, grinning, and he walked to the table, beckoning Lily to do the same.  
  
She smiled, and followed him. 


	3. Unexpected Spies

A/N: Hey everyone! First, I want to thank all the people who read and reviewed, you are AWESOME and I love you to pieces for giving my humble fic a chance. Second: I'm sorry I didn't update for a while. The reason is that I had already written and completed chapters one and two; I'd written them ages ago, I just had to type and edit them. I hadn't posted them anywhere before, so I hadn't written a third chapter. But, when I saw that you guys liked it and wanted it to keep going, I wrote ASAP! OK, I'll shut up now and get on w/ the story. Enjoy!  
  
***  
  
It was very late at night by the time Lily returned to the common room, so she was not surprised to find it deserted.  
  
She had just started up the girls' staircase when she heard a very odd sound indeed: it was the sound of someone hastily stifling a laugh but not succeeding very well, so that what came out was a sort of explosive snort. Lily whirled around and stared at the seemingly empty common room, puzzled. What was that?  
  
But just as her feeling of foreboding grew, she came back to reality; and it was extinguished just as fast as it had appeared. She was being silly ... it was late, she was tired ... and besides, she had far too much to tell her girls (who were, no doubt, awake and waiting for her) to worry about something which was probably imaginary anyway. So, without further thought, she disappeared up the stairs to her dormitory.  
  
Ten minutes later, James Potter climbed through the portrait hole and stared around the common room, as if he was looking for something. Exactly what he was looking for became clear almost as once as a large, grey rat soared across the room, squealing, and two people materialised, it seemed, out of thin air.  
  
"You're back," said Sirius, grinning, as Remus folded up James's Invisibility Cloak.  
  
James grinned back at them and was about to reply when he was interrupted by an impatient squeak behind him. He turned around to see the fat grey rat transforming back into Peter Pettigrew, who, once he had completely transformed, promptly toppled off the back of the chair he was perched on.  
  
James raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Couldn't fit him under the cloak, so we made him transform," Sirius said casually.  
  
"But, Sirius," said Peter, getting to his feet, "why did you have to throw me across the room? That really hurt, you –"  
  
"Because, Wormtail," Sirius sighed, "we didn't know that it was James, and you would've stuffed it up like you did with Lily –"  
  
"What?" James said quickly.  
  
Remus cut in before Sirius could say something scathing.  
  
"When Lily came in, Peter got a little – er – overexcited," he said, the hints of a concealed smile in the corners of his mouth. "He – well –"  
  
"He snorted," interrupted Sirius in an exasperated fashion. "This dirty great blast of a snort ... and we think Lily heard him."  
  
James, although somewhat amused, was now quite puzzled.  
  
"Erm – but I still don't understand why Sirius threw Peter across the room – I mean, if it really wasn't me, the person coming in would have seen him!"  
  
Sirius grinned.  
  
"Oh, but I did see that it was you," he said, smiling still more broadly. "I decided to have a bit of fun with old Wormtail here – you see, I knew he'd be thick enough to believe any old excuse for my chucking him over there. Anyway, Prongs," he said, turning to James and ignoring Peter's indignant spluttering, "we've been here for ages and you haven't even told us how the date went!"  
  
Remus nodded and said, "I think we'd better go up to the dorm – you never know, Lily could have her spies too ..."  
  
So the four Marauders went up to their seventh-year dorm, and did not notice Lily's friend Elle pop up from behind one of the armchairs. 


End file.
